2 Comments:

Bryan has served in law enforcement and gives two examples from his experience.

His summary is:There’s a police shooting and someone asks why they didn’t just wound the suspect, why was it necessary to kill him/her. The honest answer is that the officer was lucky to hit the individual, and when s/he pulled the trigger, unless they were a sniper, the shot was probably not “aimed.”

... (examples snipped) ...

I would hope this explains why I think having a half dozen armed civilians in the classrooms at Virginia Tech not only might not have prevented the massacre, but might have made it worse.

The killer was firing at point blank range and still did not kill everyone he fired at, and he reportedly fired approximately 200 rounds. Only 100 rounds were recovered from the victims.

Inside locks and solid doors would have saved more people than extra guns.

I think there are probably several measures that would be more effective than allowing concealed-carry on campus.

But the idea that people would just start accidentally massacring each other if they had guns is simply in error.

Shooting IS significantly harder than they make it look on t.v., but there's no doubt that if, say, two or three people in the VA Tech building had been armed, fewer people would have died.

Yes, there might be some friendly fire incidents, but overall, the victims would have been better off if they'd had firearms.

Unfortnately, there are those on the right who exaggerate in the pro-gun direction--they imagine best-case scenarios, in which someone in exactly the right place at exactly the right time makes exactly the right shot. Some on the left, however, insist on exaggerating in the anti-gun direction...guns are so dangerous that, even if there's a gun-wielding maniac coming through your front door, you're still better off being unarmed because OH MY GOD YOU'LL SHOOT YOUR EYE OUT.

In fact, the truth lies a significant distance from either of these two extremes.

And, don't forget, you have to pass a course before you get your CCW permit, and that requires that you know at least the basics of gun safety, and that your marksmanship doesn't suck.